


Lights Will Guide You Home

by thecolouryes



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, F/M, More angst, Post-Game(s), angsty fluff, mentions of dead characters, no shut up it's a thing, not super related to any of the games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-11 11:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3325466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecolouryes/pseuds/thecolouryes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawke has lost a lot of people, but most of all she mourns the one who hasn't come home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lights Will Guide You Home

**Author's Note:**

> In my yoga class this evening we ended with the Coldplay song "Fix You". I have spend the last 2 hours listening to that song on repeat and writing this.

_Lights will guide you home_  
And ignite your bones  
And I will try  
To fix you

* * *

 

At this point, it’s nothing more than a foolish ritual, and Hawke knows it. Still, there’s comfort in the rituals, and her days are empty enough that she looks forward to something this simple. 

When the sun begins to set, she hikes to the edge of the massive property, following the path of staffs stuck into the fertile land. If anyone came this way, she might be worried about being outed – or worse, recognized – but there are some advantages to not having seen another human for weeks. She reaches the furthest staff and pauses, looking out into rolling hills around her before turning back towards her home.

As the ritual dictates, she waves her hand in front of the staff to her left and the crystal on top lights.

 _Thank you, Father,_ she thinks with a sigh. She thinks of everything thing he’s done for her, but mostly she thinks about how _long_ ago it was that he died. She remembers the days when his death was so fresh that she thought she would never get over it, but she doesn’t remember the way they felt. Lost in fuzzy memories, she walks forward along the path home.

 _Thank you, Bethany,_ she thinks as she lights the crystal in the next staff. Now two lights glow against the encroaching darkness. Still, it was good to think of her sister. She knew that if she weren’t careful, her _sister_ would fade to the same kind of hazy memory that her father was.

 _Thank you, Carver,_ she thinks as she lights another staff against the shadows. It wasn’t fair to have lost a brother to the thing that saved them, but she didn’t have the will to argue with fate any longer. Too often, it seemed, the bad luck found her family on its own; there was no need to draw its attention any further.

 _Thank you, Mother,_ she thinks with the lighting of the fourth staff. Dwelling, here, is unavoidable, something that she knows is going to happen. Although it could hardly be said that Hawke and her mother were on the best of terms, it was not as if the woman ever wanted her mother _dead_. And if it wasn’t hard enough to lose her, now she was alone in the world, no family left to call her own.

 _Thank you, Merrill,_ she thinks as she lights the next staff. The little blood mage had been taken down by some Templars during the inquisition. The two had split ways by that point, but Merrill had been family at one point, and the apostate lights a staff for her fellow. There are certainly enough left over from Hawke’s adventuring days. She lights staff after staff for fallen comrades, relishing the memories that surface with each step. Dusk is the time to remember the fallen, so that the rest of the day could be passed in some sort of peace.

Slowly she makes her way to her front door. By the time she nears the threshold, she feels there is a hole in her chest that only a certain possessed apostate can help her with. And there is one more staff to light.

It’s with a heavy heart that she reaches for the staff lying just inside the door. Although this would be the staff she reached for if she reached for any, she hasn’t thought of reaching in weeks. And, somehow, it’s fitting that her last staff will go to the last person she will care about losing.

“Thank you, Anders,” she whispers as she drives the staff into the ground outside her door with all her might. “Thank you for getting us through all these battles over the years. Thank you for putting us back together after them, too. Thank you for starting the mage rebellion. Thank you for loving me. And, most of all, thank you for sacrificing yourself so that other people might be happy.” As the tears pour down her cheeks, Hawke mourns as she has so many times before and just as purely as she had so long ago when her father first left her. She lets out all of the emotion that she trapped inside when she admitted to herself that there was a reason Anders hasn’t come home yet.

(“Stafflight will guide you home,” he had promised, back when _she_ had been the one to leave and try to learn her place in this mad world.)

Once her heart has bled out, she wearily pulls herself to standing, still using the staff as a crutch. She plants a kiss on the crystal, and it flares to life. With a weary sigh, she turns back to her door.

“Hawke?” comes an uncertain call. She turns and scarcely believes that the man in front of her is there. However, when his next step nearly became a fall, she runs forward and offers him what support she can. “Thank god you’re alive,” he hisses as he redistributes his meager weight over her. There is so much that she wants to say, so much worry in her mind that he hasn’t been able to take care of himself. She’s worried that with his exhaustion there’s nothing keeping Justice at bay. She’s worried that if, for whatever reason, he loses control, she won’t have the strength to stand up to an abomination.  

But Anders straightens a little with her support, and she knows that although whatever’s coming is tough, they can stand up to it together.


End file.
